At least I thought so. I was an avid reader of Russian revolutionist Vladimir Lenin. I almost memorized some of his books.

Strongly believing that the capitalist system should lead its way to socialism and eventually communism, I dreamed of a proletarian revolution to make the ruling class tremble and disband conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai so that workers can control "the means of production."

I even thought of working at a factory and getting married to a blue-collar worker on the firm belief that only labor, not capital, can create values for society.

I loved the simple but compelling Marxist theory that the base of economic relationships and the production system determine the superstructure including ideology, culture, politics, rituals and states.

Lenin was responsible for realizing the first socialist revolution based on Marxist theory, which critics denounce as reductionism but proponents praise as totality.

Back then, Leninists were not rare as army general-turned-President Roh Tae-woo ruled the country. To grab power through a military coup along with his friend and former President Chun Doo-hwan, he killed so many innocent people.

Many agreed with the idea of overthrowing Roh. Not a few regarded a proletarian revolution as a viable way to do so.

Now, I no longer believe in Marxist or Leninist theories. I feel that socialism is too utopian so it would not materialize on this planet full of minds too egoistic to accept its idealistic creeds.

I even love Samsung and think that the country should support the conglomerate so that it will be able to better compete in the all-important area of artificial intelligence with such multinational firms as Google and Amazon.

Deep down in my heart, however, I am still a leftist and that is especially the case when it comes to politics and elections. I have never supported rightist hopefuls for presidents or lawmakers.

For this Tuesday election, I initially decided to vote for either Moon Jae-in of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea or Sim Sang-jung of the progressive Justice Party. My original idea was that I would vote for the more progressive Sim in case Moon is highly likely to win the election and otherwise vote for Moon to prevent a conservative candidate from taking power.

But I changed my mind a week before Election Day when 12 lawmakers of the conservative Bareun Party defected to the far-right Liberty Korea Party (LKP) obviously because of the low approval rate of their candidate Yoo Seong-min.

The "dirty dozen" left the LKP about 100 days ago, claiming that the party should take responsibility for the corruption scandal involving ousted former President Park Geun-hye and her aide Choi Soon-sil, who illegally meddled in state affairs.

Yoo is the best conservative politician I have ever seen. He seems to be smart, considerate, sympathetic and polite. Unlike his fellow politicians who found ways to shirk mandatory military service, Yoo served three years as a rank-and-file army soldier. His only son also served in the military.

Unlike other conservative politicians, he seems to be compassionate about the have-nots and is open to good policy suggestions from progressive camps. The son of a judge, who was dismissed because of anti-dictatorship verdicts, he also has a life-long belief that the country's ever-sprawling conglomerates should have their governance structure revamped.

To be frank, I don't think that my favorite candidate Sim would do well even if she became the leader of the country. From my perspective, she was third-worst. New President Moon was second-worst for me, who successfully blocked the worst candidate of the LKP Hong Joon-pyo from setting his feet into Cheong Wa Dae.

But I cast my vote for Yoo to show that Korea can have a rational conservative politician who cares about principles, integrity and conscience instead of other rightist ones, mostly chicken hawks who have been infamous for bribery, corruption and other malpractices.

In most other countries, rightists are about conserving the country by sticking to laws, principles and integrity while leftists are about bringing about changes through out-of-the-box imaginations and ideas.

Leftists are like the round pegs in the square holes. They're not fond of rules and have no respect for the status quo so that they can change things as demonstrated at the 1997 Apple ‘think different' campaign.

For leftists to become change agents, rightists should hold their ground and stick to their principles ― they should be the square pegs to make our society roll over.

To my great chagrin, however, we have lacked such genuine rightist politicians but I found one in Yoo, who says that he always reads the Constitution before making crucial political decisions. That's why I cast my ballot for Yoo against my political stance. I hope the four-term lawmaker would be a harbinger of many bona-fide conservative politicians to arrive in drones.